


He Won't Say That He Loves You

by FelicityGS



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Humor, M/M, Post-Break Up, meet ugly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 01:18:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17294939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FelicityGS/pseuds/FelicityGS
Summary: "I--Ben?" and huh, that's weird, he'd expected anger. "Where the hell are your clothes?"Ben stops trying to shove the window open--if the adrenaline of Hux finding him didn't do it nothing is gonna get him through the paint--and sighs, then turns around, covering himself as best he can with the scarf he did manage to talk Rey into giving him out of pity."I, uh. Lost a bet."





	He Won't Say That He Loves You

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy >:3
> 
> _you’re my best friend’s sibling / my sibling’s best friend and we’ve never gotten along, so of course it had to be you to find me stuck outside my house naked even though we haven’t seen each other in over two years_ \- [Meet Ugly #92](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/274308)

"Come on come on come on," Ben mutters under his breath, shoving against the window. _Apparently_ when Rey repainted the exterior of her house she just _painted the windows too_ , and now here Ben is, straining to shove open a window in the ice cold winter air, butt-fucking-naked because he lost a stupid bet he _shouldn't have made_ and--

"I have a gun," a voice says, and Ben runs cold to his _soul_ \--not because of the below-freezing air but because he _knows_ that voice, too well, and he considers just smashing his head through the double-pane glass. He'll either make it through or give himself a concussion, and honestly, at this point? Either would be great.

"Really don't think that's necessary," Ben says over his shoulder, not daring to look. "And hey, what are you doing back in town? Got tired of eating frat boy cock?"

"I-- _Ben_?" and huh, that's weird, he'd expected anger. "Where the hell are your clothes?"

Ben stops trying to shove the window open--if the adrenaline of Hux finding him didn't do it nothing is gonna get him through the paint--and sighs, then turns around, covering himself as best he can with the scarf he did manage to talk Rey into giving him out of pity.

"I, uh. Lost a bet."

Armit-- _Hux_ , fuck him, he _left_ \--Hux, is still... uglier than a bull frog, Ben tries to tell himself, but there's no heat in it. If anything, he's something approaching handsome. To start, his skin isn't nearly so sallow (that's just the moonlight), and he actually _fits_ the semi-formal attire he likes (not really), and he's _finally_ grown into his ears and his face isn't twisted into that vicious horrible sneer and--

_Fuck_ Ben thinks.

"You lost a bet," and there's that tone Ben had expected, washing away Ben's temporary soft spot for the bastard. Dry and unimpressed and the faintest bit of a sneer twisting Hux's lips; Ben hasn't missed him for a fucking second.

(Except all the ways he has.)

"What's it to you?" Ben asks, biting the words out; he wants to cross his arms, but he'd rather keep the scarf on his junk, too, so he supposes he'll just have to make do with hunching in and glaring.

"Nothing, I suppose," Hux says with a smirk. "I'll leave you to breaking and entering."

"Yeah, you better."

"Or else?"

That stupid curiosity; that equally stupid need to get the last word in. Ben fumes for a minute, trying to figure out what to say. He really didn't plan far enough ahead, but then, he guesses he never has.

"What are you even doing here?" he asks instead.

"You're stuck, aren't you?"

"I asked you first."

"You know, if you stay out here you'll get frostbite. It'd be a shame."

"You just miss my dick," Ben accuses, and at Hux's grin, he grins a bit too.

(Maybe he did miss Hux. A little.)

"Maybe so," Hux says, and, "Well, come on. I'm sure you forgot a pair somewhere."

Hux turns and leaves; he doesn't wait to see if Ben is following, and for a second, Ben lets two years of bitterness and angst well up, soaks in the vinegar of it--how, even now, Hux just assumes Ben will follow when Ben _didn't_ when Hux ran off for college, how Hux still thinks Ben hasn't moved on when he _has_ , dammit, and maybe Hux should stop assuming shit.

And then he follows Hux inside.

The house hasn't changed much since the last time Ben was in it; still that same military neatness Hux the dad demands, still the tiniest bits of femininity at the edges left behind by a quiet mother who has never really cared a bit for Armitage. Ben's not sure why it's surprising, it's not like Hux ever left an impression in the decorations, but it does. Maybe he just thought they were as (ripped open) shocked by Hux's cross-country move as Ben.

Hux's room is still the same, even. Ben stands a bit stupidly inside the door, looking around; the only difference is all the posters have been taken down, the books gone. The bits that were _Hux_ , gone, and yet even in his own room Hux never really had a place.

(Maybe Ben shouldn't resent that Hux left so much, when it was so obviously so much _getting out_....

Fuck that. He _left_ Ben, and he never looked back.)

(Except Army _told_ him, asked him to come with, and Ben can still remember the taste of blood in his mouth, the split of his lip when Arm-- _Hux_ punched him for saying he was no better than his birth mother, _abandoning_ Ben--)

It's better like this, Ben thinks, and then he's hit in the face with a pair of boxers he thought he'd lost.

"You didn't have to throw them in my face," Ben grumbles, slipping into them quickly. "Why do you even have these still?"

"You think anyone cleaned out my shit after I left?" Hux snorts, drags out the chair at his desk and sprawls out. He looks... unfairly good in the moonlight spilling through the window, with his red hair mussed just a bit, the gel failing this late into the night, and the slight wrinkle of his pants around his hips, the way he stretches and his shirt stretches tight across his stomach.

God, Ben would still make out with him in a heartbeat, even if he hates him for leaving.

"So?" Ben says, yanking the blanket off the bed and wrapping around himself, sitting down on the bed. "Why are you here?"

Hux shrugs. "Family."

"Your mom--"

"Hardly a mother." Hux pauses, closes his eyes, and for a moment, the vulnerability that he's only ever shown Ben is all over his face: a bone deep exhaustion, usually hidden by the fury he's otherwise propelled by. "But yes."

Ben goes quiet at that, sits for a while. Rey will be getting back in another hour, if the time on the bedside alarm is anything to go by, and he's not sure he wants to suffer an hour in the same room as Hux.

"So," Ben says, drags the oh out long and rough and as hillbilly as possible.

"So?"

"I guess. How's school?"

Hux opens his eyes, sneering at Ben. "'How's school?'" he echoes, twisting Ben's words, and _there's_ that southern accent that was missing, but now it's all a mockery, and _fuck_ , what did Ben ever see in him? And then, Hux sighs, the venom oozing out of him with the tension, and _oh_. Right. "It's... going. Better than here. The frat boy cock is nothing to write home about."

"Well, I could have told you _that_ ," Ben says, but he's. Off foot. "You look. Better. I guess."

"You guess," Hux laughs, rubbing his face. "Well, you look less like an acne-pocked moon, _I guess_."

"Thanks," Ben says, totally straight, and he grins as Hux laughs more, that soft chuckle that Ben loves so much--the one that doesn't hide knives.

(Ben wants, more than anything, for Hux to say he missed _Ben_ , but he doesn't know how to ask--knows that he _can't_ , he'd never live it down, and he wishes they could talk. It's been two years and he's spent every day aching for this venomous little snake, and it hurts, looking at him, as much as it heals. This is the moment Ben should say he missed Hux, but he can't do that either, can he?)

"How much of the local gossip have you caught up on?" he asks instead, and when Hux hasn't, Ben keeps going, because he can do this. He can story tell and keep the space between them, keep himself wrapped in blankets that don't smell like Hux anymore, and pretend (for a little while) things are like they were, a long time ago.

***

Ben hears Rey's diesel guzzling truck just before the flash of headlights pulling into the other driveway slip across the room, cast everything into stark relief.

"Looks like I can finally get inside," Ben says, standing and letting the blanket drop to the bed. "Thanks keeping my dick from freezing off."

"Mm." Hux doesn't stand, just looks up and up and up at Ben; it's almost like they're fourteen again, when Hux was still short as the pasty gremlin he looked like and Ben was a thousand feet of beanpole.

God, they'd been ugly.

"I'll see you 'round," Ben says, and heads for the door; he will, because their town is small and people talk, and short of never going outside, it'll be unavoidable.

"Wait," Hux says, as Ben's got the door open.

(He shouldn't; Hux _left_ \--)

Ben waits, turns his head to look over his shoulder.

He doesn't know how to describe the look on Hux's face; it's not one that he's ever seen, and he's sure he'd remember it--remember the draw of the brows, the crease of a mouth, the shattered attempts at distance while everything about him bleeds through the cracks.

"You could. Stay here." The words are pushed out; they must cut like razors.

(Hux has never asked, never offered; maybe he's changed while he's away.)

(Maybe he _had_ to get out, maybe Ben was wrong to beg him to stay, maybe--

Ben should walk, like Hux did.

(But maybe this isn't the same as then.)

"Yeah?" Ben says, but he doesn't move.

Ben should walk, because Hux did; because Ben has spent two years bleeding for a boy who didn't seem to realize how much of Ben's heart he taken up, and how much he took with him when he left.

Hux's eyes are glass-blue and they're staring at Ben with an expression he doesn't know, and all Ben's wanted for the last two years is to see them again.

"Ben. I won't beg," and there's that little bit of vitriol, but--

"Okay," Ben says, and he closes the door.


End file.
